The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 77

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 77. Royal Summons
[……and therefore, Munno of Drachen is ordered to appear before the royal court as a witness.]
The message from some count or other, who appeared to be a royal administrator, was extraordinarily rude.
They issued their orders unilaterally without even bothering to explain the reason properly.
Yet there was no way to refuse a royal command.
Immediately after, I tried to connect directly with Trian.
[Directly? Ha, you must be in quite the rush. Well, I can hardly object now. If you’re saying Trian’s situation matters more than the Crown, what can I do? My apologies, Rian. Munno.]
“Of course not, Your Highness.”
[And when the two of us talk, you’re to address me as Father-in-law.]
“I would never presume to—”
[You’re truly something…….]
Even Enoch himself said there was no helping it.
My trip to the Capital had already been decided, regardless of my own wishes.
“Apparently the temples and the royal court have developed their own methods, and they’re not entirely certain they match, so they’d like to compare…….”
“I won’t run into any trouble while I’m there, will I?”
Uneasy for no clear reason, I asked as much—but Father simply offered a wry smile in return.
“Our royal house doesn’t take honor so lightly. We’re hardly without power, either.”
“Still, it sits uneasily with me.”
“If your abilities were false, that would be a problem. But they’re not, are they?”
“You trust this discourteous royal house rather readily, Father.”
“Those with true power have no need for tricks.”
“……Is that all there is to it?”
“Yes. Even if you combined the strength of every noble house except the Crown, they still wouldn’t match the royal house. That’s why even the Aslan House, the mightiest among the nobility, dares not oppose it.”
“Hmm……. And yet the kingdom maintains the Lord System and Feudalism?”
To a question that might have been called presumptuous, Father offered a subtle smile and nodded.
“Most of the kingdom’s worthless borderlands are under direct royal administration. From the perspective of the Crown—Airen House—it’s more convenient to entrust troublesome territories to other houses and collect taxes from them. Trian, for instance, which must necessarily hold back the monsters of the Northern Mountain Range.”
“Ah…….”
Only then did understanding dawn.
Why Enoch, the shield of the North who had promised me leave, could not delay matters much longer.
Watching my expression, Father laughed again.
“I’m pleased to see you taking an interest in the world. But remember this one thing: should you ever receive an invitation to a party hosted by any prince, refuse it absolutely.”
“I beg your pardon? Which prince?”
“Any prince! If you should become entangled and drawn into the Royal Succession War, you’ll be utterly ruined.”
Ruined—a lord, no less…….
Before I could object to such an undignified turn of phrase, another question occurred to me first.
“Do I have the right to refuse? If a prince extends an invitation?”
“That’s precisely why you must find a clever excuse. Clever, mind you!”
“Easier said than done…….”
“If you truly cannot avoid it, then attend every prince’s party instead.”
“Ah……. But Father, isn’t there something you’re forgetting?”
“What?”
“Princess Loanna is already engaged to the Third Prince.”
“Ah…….”
As if he’d genuinely forgotten, Father grimaced and let out a sigh.
But then—
“……Damn. Yes, that’s right. His Highness must have quite a lot on his mind. Still, remember what I said.”
“Yes?”
“Getting tangled up in the Succession War could mean the end of our house. Depending on the character of the next king, he might embrace those who followed his rivals—or he might eliminate them all.”
“In other words…….”
“In the worst case, Trian House itself could be destroyed, but our vassal houses would not. They would simply change their liege lord—nothing more.”
“……That’s quite cold.”
“It’s reality. Of course, whoever becomes king is unlikely to simply abandon the shield of the North—but the possibility of deadly opposition remains unchanged. Princess Loanna, in accepting her engagement, has essentially wagered her life.”
Hearing that far, a fundamental question suddenly resurfaced in my mind.
“From what I hear, it sounds as though the princes wage war against one another. How does the royal house maintain its strength through such affairs?”
“It’s not war, exactly. There are ‘Trials’ of sorts, but those are contests between the noble houses backing each prince—the Crown itself remains uninvolved.”
Trials?
“What exactly is this Royal Succession War, then?”
“That…….”
* * *
“Such is my fate…….”
Thump-thump.
A knight in black armor, a single backpack across his shoulders, trudging down the Official Road.
Munno’s complaints had been tumbling out of his mouth without pause.
And for good reason.
The road to the Capital was nothing short of torture for him.
[Arrive at the Capital within two weeks.]
Given the gravity of the matter, the royal court had likely based their deadline on a rider pushing a horse hard without rest.
But he had no horse to ride.
“God damn it. I’m going to die out here.”
Even as he grumbled, the moment Munno felt his body had recovered enough during his walk, he drove his legs hard and kicked at the ground.
Bang!
The earth beneath his feet carved deep and exploded backward.
His body shot forward like an arrow, racing south along the Official Road.
If nothing else, at least he’d developed a knack—or rather, a technique—for long-distance sprinting.
– Space Severing with your body…? Ha. Yes, that could very well be another branch of the lost techniques. Perfect evasion, or a charging strike. Hmm… Thank you, my boy. But why not explore other applications as well?
– Pardon?
– Space Severing consumes too much power, so instead, if you ride the grain of the air with the principle of Wind Cutting… I think this might work?
‘Yes, it works. Beautifully.’
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-crack!
Whiiiish!
The wind ahead split open, pushing his sprinting body forward as if cradling it.
There was some drain on stamina and mana, but compared to the actual speed and distance covered, the efficiency was orders of magnitude better.
Though even this couldn’t be sustained for long.
“Huff… huff…”
He’d have to rest soon.
Munno gazed at the sun sinking low on the horizon and began searching near the Official Road for a forest or clearing where he might shelter.
Growl.
‘I’ll need to find something to hunt.’
True to the techniques of Drachen, his body burned through resources in real time—a problem—and now he had to provision himself.
‘Damn. This stamina drain…’
Growl.
The two weeks’ worth of rations he’d brought from Drachen had been consumed entirely over the last two days.
And worse, he couldn’t stop at any cities now.
– Don’t visit any other cities on your way to the Capital. And tell no one of your intended route. If those heretical cultists should somehow learn…
“Damn it. My situation really is…”
Constant regrets aside, at least the exertion seemed to be paying off.
As he cycled through sprinting and rest, the mastery of Wind Sprint had solidified, and now even with adequate rest, he felt certain he could arrive faster than any ordinary horse.
‘If only I could replace physical exhaustion entirely with mana expenditure…’
Munno muttered this to himself, his mind wandering, when
Growl.
his instincts sent a signal, and he turned his full focus toward hunting in the forest.
The Demon Devourer only reacted strongly to beings with Demonic Energy.
But he possessed another skill for the hunt.
‘My sense of smell was already sharp, and it’s gotten even better since then.’
Sniff. Sniff.
And the moment he caught the scent he was looking for,
all other thoughts vanished.
“Heh. Meat, meat…”
He wiped away drool before it could escape his lips, and
the Black Knight—no, the dark hunter—threw himself into the forest’s shadows.
And hours later.
Crackle-crackle.
“Gaaaah~. Nothing beats wild boar, really.”
It would’ve been better with kimchi, but wanting more than this was pure greed.
“Munch… Ahhhh…”
Munno sat contentedly patting his belly, having worked through half a roasted wild boar.
What could be more important than working hard and eating well?
Soon after, he looked around for a place to sleep rough, surveying the area this way and that, when
now that he had a moment’s peace, his thoughts drifted to an unusual Credential Token he’d tucked into his possession.
“Hm…?”
Whoosh.
Tap.
A credential token inscribed with nothing but the name “Leed.”
– You’ll need this, brother.
It was a token his younger sister had given him before leaving Drachen again.
– The Leed Company said they owed us a debt, so they gave us this token. I heard they run an intelligence network too, so if you remember the ‘L’ mark and show the credential token, you should be able to learn any information available in town. Maybe even more than that…?
“When did you grow up so much?”
He didn’t press his younger brother—who would be thirteen soon—about where he’d obtained such a thing.
The Leed Company was Drachen’s primary trading partner after all, so it was hardly strange for them to offer such a gift to curry favor with Rian, the heir to the territory.
“I’ll use it well, Rian.”
In a world where the internet was nothing but fantasy, simply having a way to obtain information loosened the knot of anxiety that had gripped his journey to the Capital.
Though the immediate problem ahead remained as daunting as ever.
“The Royal Succession War, then…”
– As befits the Knight Kingdom Airen, the crown prince is chosen through three trials—of martial prowess, intelligence, and virtue. With the Fourth Prince coming of age this summer, the succession war is all but begun.
– Martial prowess simply means the prince’s combat ability—once they’ve learned the royal secret technique, the Airen Steel Body Technique, and achieved awakening, they’re qualified. It’s practically a broken technique that nearly guarantees awakening to anyone who masters it.
– In the past, they had the princes duel each other directly, but there were too many accidents… Ahem, anyway, that’s where the real problem begins.
– The Trial of Intelligence works like this: the victor is determined by whoever solves one of the problems plaguing the palace. The problem isn’t fixed—the princes choose it themselves. But you can guess, can’t you? What problem is drawing the most attention in the Capital right now?
“The Demon Cult…”
Mages hiding their Demonic Energy, concealed within the kingdom.
That was one reason he would inevitably draw notice once he arrived in the Capital.
Ha.
“What a headache. Ugh…”
The deadline for the Trial of Intelligence was, officially, whatever the King decided.
Usually, if one prince achieved an outstanding result, it would end immediately. Otherwise, they’d give roughly a year for the princes to demonstrate their accomplishments, then evaluate their progress.
– Because the princes actively try to solve the nation’s problems, the common folk benefit during the Trial of Intelligence. But the Trial of Virtue that comes after…?
“The Trial of Virtue. What kind of nonsense is that?”
He let out a hollow laugh.
Remembering his father’s words, he could only smile bitterly.
And now he understood perfectly why Count Enoch of Trian and his father were so desperate for him to stay out of the succession war.
Yet there was one face that inevitably came to mind.
“That young lady—what exactly is she aiming for?”
Loanna: an ambitious girl of merely eighteen, yet her hunger for power was hard to fathom.
What had she seen in that grandfather of hers that made her stake her entire life on it?
Was it mere blind ambition?
Or…?
“…Does she have confidence she can succeed?”
He couldn’t know, but he had to admit—he was curious.
As his thoughts spiraled, another figure naturally surfaced in his mind: the female knight who would be at Loanna’s side.
‘Karina…’
A beauty unlike any he’d seen in his entire life, past or present.
They had fought through harsh battle together, if only briefly—and he would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of her as a man.
And yet.
‘I don’t even know…’
As someone who’d never experienced romance, a true romantic novice, he still couldn’t tell if he was drawn to Karina simply because she was beautiful, or if genuine affection had already taken root.
“Or is it even that simple?”
Either way, it was pointless to wonder without knowing her heart.
Yet thinking back on what happened in Drachen, she didn’t seem to dislike him either.
‘Or… did she? Does she dislike me?’
When he’d deliberately taken a beating from Loanna’s knights to give the Count an excuse, Karina had struck the back of his head with particular venom—and now that image kept replaying in his mind.
It only made him want to know her heart more.
And if possible…
“I want to win in a duel against her, at least…”
Losing to Karina in their match left an uncomfortable sting he couldn’t shake.
And that night, Munno dreamed of Karina.
Of her…
Beating him soundly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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